Mathematical Quotes - Page 26

• The ludicrous state of solid geometry made me pass over this branch.

  Plato

  Plato, Math, Branches

  Plato (2016). “The Republic”, p.413, Xist Publishing

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• What distinguishes a mathematical model from, say, a poem, a song, a portrait or any other kind of "model," is that the mathematical model is an image or picture of reality painted with logical symbols instead of with words, sounds or watercolors.

  John L. Casti

  Song, Teaching, Math

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• Ignorance and superstition ever bear a close and mathematical relation to each other.

  James F. Cooper

  Inspirational, Motivational, Ignorance

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• While the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will be up to, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Men, Average, Numbers

  Sherlock Holmes to Doctor Watson in The Sign of Four (1890).

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• Human life is proverbially uncertain; few things are more certain than the solvency of a life-insurance company.

  Arthur Eddington

  Life, Math, Statistics

  Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (1933). “The nature of the physical world”

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• It is here [in mathematics] that the artist has the fullest scope of his imagination.

  Havelock Ellis

  Artist, Imagination, Statistics

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• The calculative exactness of practical life which the money economy has brought about corresponds to the ideal of natural science: to transform the world by mathematical formulas. Only money economy has filled the days of so many people with weighing, calculating, with numerical determinations, with a reduction of qualitative values to quantitative ones.

  Georg Simmel

  Determination, People, World

  Georg Simmel, Kurt H. Wolff (1950). “The Sociology of Georg Simmel”, p.412, Simon and Schuster

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• Homeopathy seemed . . . both mathematical and poetic.

  Scarlett Thomas

  Poetic, Homeopathy

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• The world of strict naturalism in which clever mathematical laws all by themselves bring the universe and life into existence, is pure [science] fiction. Theories and laws do not bring matter/energy into existence. The view that they nevertheless somehow have the capacity seems a rather desperate refuge...from the alternative possibility...Trying to avoid the clear evidence for the existence of a divine intelligence behind nature, atheist scientists are forced to ascribe creative powers to less and less credible candidates like mass/energy and the laws of nature.

  John Lennox

  Atheist, Clever, Views

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• Avarice, greed, concupiscence and so forth are all based on the mathematical truism that the more you get, the more you have. The remark of that it is more blessed to give than to receive is based on the human truth that the more you give away in love, the more you are. It is not just for the sake of other people that tells us to give rather than get, but for our own sakes too.

  Frederick Buechner

  Blessed, People, Giving

  FaceBook post by Frederick Buechner from Mar 27, 2014

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• We know next to nothing with any certainty about Pythagoras, except that he was not really called Pythagoras. The name by which he is known to us was probably a nickname bestowed by his followers. According to one source, it meant ‘He who spoke truth like an oracle’. Rather than entrust his mathematical and philosophical ideas to paper, Pythagoras is said to have expounded them before large crowds. The world’s most famous mathematician was also its first rhetorician.

  Daniel Tammet

  Philosophical, Names, Ideas

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• Like works of literature, mathematical ideas help expand our circle of empathy, liberating us from the tyranny of a single, parochial point of view. Numbers, properly considered, make us better people.

  Daniel Tammet

  Views, Circles, Ideas

  "Thinking in Numbers". Book by Daniel Tammet, 2012.

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• I believe sanity and realism can be restored to the teaching of Mathematical Statistics most easily and directly by entrusting such teaching largely to men and women who have had personal experience of research in the Natural Sciences.

  Ronald Fisher

  Believe, Teaching, Men

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• The analysis of variance is not a mathematical theorem, but rather a convenient method of arranging the arithmetic.

  Ronald Fisher

  Science, Pythagorean Theorem, Analysis

  "Statistics in agricultural research". Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 1934.

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• The numbers are a catalyst that can help turn raving madmen into polite humans.

  Philip J. Davis

  Math, Numbers, Helping

  Philip J. Davis, William G. Chinn (1985). “3.1416 and all that”, Birkhauser

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• Mathematics is the supreme judge; from its decisions there is no appeal.

  Tobias Dantzig

  Math, Judging, Decision

  Tobias Dantzig (2005). “Number: The Language of Science”, Dutton Juvenile

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• Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated.

  Michael C. Reed

  Sex, Math, Observation

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• Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency.

  Rene Descartes

  Powerful, Knowledge, Math

  RENE DESCARTES (1952). “RULES FOR THE DIRECTION OF THE MIND DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE MEDITATIONS AND REPLIES THE GEOMETRY”

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• Logic doesn't apply to the real world.

  Marvin Minsky

  Real, Knowledge, Math

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• Although I am almost illiterate mathematically, I grasped very early in life that any one who can count to ten can count upward indefinitely if he is fool enough to do so.

  Robertson Davies

  Math, Fool, Enough

  Robertson Davies (1949). “The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks”, Clarke, Irwin

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• The calculus is the greatest aid we have to the application of physical truth in the broadest sense of the word.

  William Fogg Osgood

  Truth, Math, Statistics

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• Calculus required continuity, and continuity was supposed to require the infinitely little; but nobody could discover what the infinitely little might be.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Littles, Statistics

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.51, 谷月社

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• Mathematics is the handwriting on the human consciousness of the very Spirit of Life itself.

  Claude Fayette Bragdon

  Math, Handwriting, Spirit

  Claude Fayette Bragdon (2005). “Architecture and Democracy”, p.61, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The Mandelbrot set is the most complex mathematical object known to mankind.

  Benoit Mandelbrot

  Math, Mankind, Complexes

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• Mathematics is for lazy people.

  Peter Hilton

  Math, Lazy People, People

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